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Vol. 13 Issue 13…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…March 28, 2010

Intuit's Vibe

By John Burl Smith

The mention of slavery in the Western Hemisphere brings to mind places such as the United States, Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica. Places such as Venezuela, Peru and Colombia are not instantly connected to slavery even though these were Spanish colonies and everywhere Spain colonized, it imported African slaves to work plantations and mines. Today, countries that were former slave colonies have large populations of slave descendants.

Universally, these communities share not only a common heritage, but they share a similar place at the bottom of their societies. Having survived forced bondage, then economic slavery for well over 400 years, this Diaspora is currently being pushed over the brink by another onslaught of genocide perpetrated by multinational corporations and governments vying to control land, water and other natural resources.

This insidious juggernaut has uprooted populations and slaughtered others in the name of reducing reliance on oil, renewable energy and lowering carbon emissions. However, the other side of this coin is being ignored by a world inundated with propaganda demanding more energy. This is not to say the price of energy is not going up, which it certainly is, but as Edward Bernays would have had the world believe, the "common good" requires sacrificing some for the "good of all." This means Western powers have the right to determine who will be sacrificed to reduce competition for dwindling resources. Hence, the ethanol scam and the palm oil land grab going on around the world go unchallenged.

The untold story is that the drive for more energy through the production of biofuel has a hidden agenda -- the use of food as a population control weapon. Degradation of habitats and growing more non- food crops are forcing poor people to compete with cars for food. This struggle has descendants of slavery, neoliberal policies, corporate greed and government complicity locked in a "dirty little war "away from the eyes of the consuming public.

In places like Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Indonesia, Malaysia and Africa, as vast tracts of land are converted into palm oil plantations, communities of slave descendants, victims of colonialism and indigenous land owners are being turned into landless peasants. Once pushed off their land, the rain forest they depended on for food is being destroyed and water diverted to irrigate palm oil plantations. Landless inhabitants of shanty towns, slave descendants are threatened with starvation and must become neo-slaves on palm oil plantation to survive.

Industrialized nations are using the energy crisis to reduce competition for resources. Black people were not in the room when Europeans and the Catholic Church decided Africans were a commodity. Descendants of the people who served as the world's energy source as slaves are now victims in the drive to reduce world population. Governments are lining their pockets by facilitating this human tragedy. Today, Jews are financing the genocide much like they greased the wheels of the slave trade.

Lay It at the Feet of the EU

By John Burl Smith

Beginning April 2008, all fuel sold at UK petrol stations were required by law to be mixed with 2.5% 'biofuels.' Moreover, the EU is promoting free trade agreements with countries that increase biofuel production. Colombia is a case in point. The EU plans to meet 10% of its fuel needs with biofuels. This will increase demand for Colombian palm oil and accelerate current human rights abuses and environmental damage.

According to Dominic Nutt of Christian Aid, "The paramilitaries are not subtle in taking land. They visit a community and tell landowners, 'If you don't sell to us, we will negotiate with your widow.' Farmers that refused to sell or surrender their land are murdered. There are stories of paramilitaries cutting off illiterate peasants' hands and using fingerprints on fraudulent documents to transfer land ownership."

Britain is the largest importer of palm oil in Europe. Palm oil is used in a variety of processed foods and cosmetics. Biofuels will cause a huge expansion of palm oil imports by the EU from Colombia. According EU negotiator in Colombia and Ecuador Fernando Cardesa García, "We don't believe the human rights issue is a problem for the [free trade agreement] negotiations, because it is not an element in the commercial agreement."

Derek Wall, candidate in the upcoming EU election, pledged to oppose the EU's plans for increased palm oil imports, particularly from Colombia, because palm oil production is linked to human rights abuse and environmental destruction. "I would urge all European election candidates to pledge their opposition to palm oil production in Colombia."

A modeling study conducted by the EU revealed concerns about the unintended impact of Europe's thirst for biofuels. It stated that "The desired effect may come at a potentially high cost: a human cost paid by the world's poorest consumers who may face higher food prices or food shortages." Higher food prices led to food riots in some developing countries and were partly blamed on biofuels such as ethanol which consumed part of the U.S. corn crop in 2008. "The simulated effects of EU biofuels policies imply a considerable shock to agricultural commodity markets," the report reads. EU demand for cereals such as wheat -- used to make ethanol -- will rise by about 7% in the next decade as a direct result of its biofuel policies, raising cereal prices by 10%," one modeling study shows. These are not unintended consequences but the plan.

The greatest impact of EU demand for biofuels will be on the price of vegetable oils used to make biodiesel. The EU will account for nearly half the world's biodiesel consumption in 2020, leading to a 30-35% rise in vegetable oil prices. Environmentalists warn that to meet the added demand for biofuels, "farmers around the world will expand into new areas, sometimes by clearing tropical rainforests and draining peatlands, as well as producing biofuel products, rather than food." "These models confirm our fears that EU biofuel policies are massively increasing pressure on land worldwide," said Ariel Brunner, head of EU policy at the conservation group BirdLife International.

The modeling study also found "the projected boost in the consumption of palm oil particularly worrying, as this commodity is already a major driver of deforestation in the world's most threatened ecosystems. The drive to expand biofuels production is creating new pressures on land and food rights all over the world. This process is most advanced in Latin America, where national and international companies are increasing the production of sugarcane, palm oil, jatropha and soybeans for markets in the United States and Europe. In many cases, smallholder farmers are being driven off their lands and fragile ecosystems are threatened."

For instance in Guatemala, the area under cultivation for sugarcane increased more than 155% over the last five years. Land used for African palm for biodiesel production tripled in the same period. Guatemala, a small country with high rates of poverty, is becoming one of the world's leading producers of ethanol for export. Similar processes are unfolding in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and many other countries across the Americas. Crops for agrofuels or 'biofuels' are fuels made primarily from crops grown in large-scale monocultures, which means less land for growing food and greater hunger among poor people.

Agrofuels, far from being climate friendly, accelerate climate change because of deforestation and other ecosystem destruction and because they rely on agrichemicals linked to high greenhouse gas emissions. They also lead to hunger, and to farmers being forced off their land. Afro-Colombians, descendants from African slaves brought to Latin America, are in the crosshairs of this EU population control, food as a weapon biofuels genocidal madness. (Sources: http://derekwalleuroelectioncampaign.blogspot.com, www.greenleft.org.au, www.forexyard.com and, http://news.mongabay.com)

Hood Notes

Food or Fuel

By John Burl Smith

For Afro-Colombians, land use is based on cultivating a few traditional crops for subsistence -- such as corn, yucca and cocoa -- or for hunting and fishing, not fuel. According to human rights organizations working in the north-west Choco province and in dense forests along the Pacific, "paramilitary gangs are seizing Afro-Colombian land to facilitate biofuel conglomerates. The land is also being transformed with elaborate networks - highways, drainage canals and palm oil plantation sites. Tropical forests are being cut down, water sources diverted to aid the development of agribusiness projects." This type of genocide is reminiscent of what was done to Native People in the United States under Manifest Destiny.

Tens of thousands of Afro-Colombians forced off their land live in shanty towns in cities such as Bogota. Their lands are now palm plantations producing so-called "green" fuel for cars in Paris, London and Brussels. Unlike most of the Americas, since colonial times people of African origin in Colombia have coexisted in small rural communities with indigenous people. Like indigenous communities in many parts of Latin America, Afro-Colombian communities were engaged in Liberation Theology in the 1960s and also in consciousness-raising, political organizing, and ethnic identity building. Moreover, they participated in the process leading up to the 1991 constitution and publicly claimed an identity based on ancestral ties and collective ownership of land, and became caretakers of the fragile tropical forest of the Pacific Coast.

Afro-Colombians make up as much as a quarter of Colombia's population and have one of the most active indigenous rights movements in the country. Afro-Colombians live mainly in the northwest on land that is greatly desired by multinational corporations for agro-industrial development. Afro-Colombian peace activist Bernado Vivas says, "The precise number of Afro-Colombians is unknown because we are not counted in the census which helps the government further marginalize us. We are persecuted, killed like rats because we are in the way of investment and development."

Twenty-three Afro-Colombian communities in the northwestern Choco region had a total of 123,000 hectares of land (about 393,940 acres) seized by the government in 1997, displacing 7,800 people in order to make room for African palm plantations and its exported product. Afro-Colombian and other indigenous groups have occupied buildings and farm estates throughout Colombia in protests, demanding the return of their lands. According to Vivas, "Those whose lands have been taken through corruption and false documents are terrorized by paramilitaries, so many do not fight for their claims because the judicial system will not back them up."

The Afro-Columbia movement goes beyond a struggle for land, it is a struggle for general peace and justice through opposing the civil war; the policies of President Uribe's government; the imposition of development projects; the US's 'Plan Colombia' and 'War on Drugs,' and the neoliberal agenda. It is just one of many groups across Latin America that is threatening to undermine US domination of the continent which began with the Mexican-American War and Manifest Destiny.

Mainstream US media describe Colombia as ravaged not only by civil war between state-associated paramilitaries and Marxist guerrilla forces, but a "War on Drugs" waged by the US under the guise of Plan Colombia. Today's "neoliberalism" echoes Manifest Destiny, which nearly wiped out Native People in North America and is trying to do the same in the South.

Additionally, Vivas described the "War on Drugs" in Colombia as ecocide. "US-trained soldiers use planes, bought with US money, to spray pesticides over areas where they say coca is grown. The real impact of these operations has been not the elimination of cocaine, but the injury and death of thousands of innocent Colombian farmers and villagers. The "War on Drugs" is less a moral crusade against the criminal drug trade, and more about multinational corporations starving thousands of powerless people by pushing them off their land."

The Zapatistas in Mexico, the Landless Peasant's Movement in Brazil, the Workers' Takover and Unemployed Workers' Movements in Argentina and indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia - all are among many similar movements sweeping the region in revolt against the domination of local societies and economies by the US and EU under neoliberalism and the need for 'green energy.' Many indigenous movements are communicating and often working together to stop the genocidal biofuel plot to control population with food shortages. (Sources: www.culturalsurvival.org, www.msuspokesman.com, www.smithsonianmag.com and www.tcdailyplanet.net)

Politics Y2K10

Marginalized Afro-Venezuelans

By John Burl Smith

The election of President Hugo Chavez in 1999 presented the Venezuelan people with an opportunity to write what could have become the world's most radical constitution. Considered the pillar of the Chavez-led "Bolivarian Revolution," co-authors Carlos Martinez, Michael Fox, and Jojo Farrell, who are part of a small international network, traveled to remote areas of Venezuela and lived in shanty towns to capture people's true thoughts about the Constitution.

Their book Venezuela Speaks! offers a grassroots bottom-up view of the revolutionary movement that propelled President Chavez to power. Venezuelan housing activist Iraida Morocoima explains in the book, "It is important people understand that we are fighting on two fronts: the struggle against the opposition so that they don't alter our goals, and the struggle against the government bureaucrats who continue to give land to large construction companies while supporting capitalism. That's why this is a process of revolution within the revolution.

These Bolibourgeoisie (bureaucrats within Chavez's administration) serve as fences between the people and Chavez that often stops the effective implementation of the constitution. However, as the short-lived 2002 coup d'etat proved, Chavez's return to office was largely a result of mass mobilization from the grassroots movements. Therefore, his continued existence depends on the strong support of some of the most radical groups in the country."

She believes, "This book should serve as a tool for activists outside Venezuela, including activists in the United States. It shows how, through debate, self-criticism, popular education and savvy media skills, people can free themselves from state and corporate power manipulation. Venezuela Speaks! argues persuasively that the untold story of bottom-up democracy is key to understanding the complexity of the present-day political situation in Venezuela. The book tries to convey this non-hierarchical philosophy by allowing people from every sector of society, including community organizers, educators, journalists, farmers, women, students, Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelans to voice their thoughts about Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution."

For Afro-Venezuelans this revolutionary struggle goes far beyond Chavez and the government's anti-neoliberal policies. Even though they have been ignored and marginalized, Afro-Venezuelans represent one of the most significant political dynamics -- the dynamic between commitment of a government to a discourse with grassroots political participation, and the response of Afro-Venezuelans -- which has already gone beyond the expectations of the government to challenge its real intent."

The reality that Chavez must address is when asked the vast majority of Venezuelans say, "There is no racism because we are all 'mestizos,' mixed ancestry. Yet, when one looks at the society, one observes clear examples of discrimination. The most obvious sign is lighter skinned people occupy the upper levels, brown skinned people are in the middle and blacks are on the bottom of society - a pattern that holds true worldwide in multi-cultural societies.

This point was made most acutely by the TransAfrica Forum delegation at its final press conference in Venezuela, "Yes, racism in Venezuela is alive and well, despite the fact that practically all Venezuelans denied it." They pointed out several incidents that made the existence of racism fairly obvious. "News commentators referred to our trip as a "burned" tour - a skin color reference. Also, a prominent opposition spokesperson referred to the delegation members as "monkeys" - a fairly common derogatory term for people of African descent anywhere in the world. El Nacional's Zapata newspaper cartoonist drew fairly obvious negative caricatures of our racial background."

Jesus "Chucho" Garcia, a founder and international relations director of the Afro-Venezuelan Network, offers historical background on Venezuelan racism. Arturo Uslar Pietri and modernity intellectuals of the 1930s pushed the idea that "Blacks did not have a visible cultural contribution to make to Venezuelan culture. The only thing blacks have is laziness and vagrancy; just as the indigenous people, these ethnic components must be eliminated," a sufficient underpinning for institutional racism.

"Then, Marcos Perez Jimenez dictatorship (1950) launched the 'great national ideal,' which was to 'whiten' Venezuela. He brought in great quantities of immigrants from Europe to approximate Western European culture. With the period of representative democracy (1958), an African-Venezuelan, Luis Beltran Prieto Figueroa, who belonged to Acción Democrática, aspired to be a presidential candidate (1968) but the party said, 'no, a black cannot be president,' a clear indication of racism. So he formed his own party, the Electoral Movement of the People.

Racial exclusion, discrimination and public policy changes are the greatest challenges for Chavez's revolution. Efforts to gain recognition by Afro-Venezuelans during the writing of the 1999 Constitution showed racism does not respect ideologies. Those on the left blocked Chavez proposals to recognize people of African decent. Afro-Venezuelans say that, "No real, profound, sincere revolution will succeed without incorporating issues of African descent."

He went on to declare that Venezuela's signing of the optional protocol or Article 14 of the United Nations International Convention Against all Forms of Racial Discrimination obligated it to present a report every two years before the International Committee against Racism to evaluate advances in the field of combating racism. Responding to Venezuela's report, the Committee recommended the implementation of the following: Recognize Afro-descendants in the Constitution, be it through an amendment or through a reform. Urge the National Institute of Statistics to count Afro-descendants with the goal of determining how many there are, where they are and how they are, in order to eradicate exclusion of the poorest of the Venezuelan population. Finally, incorporate in educational curricula the moral, political, social and cultural contributions of Africans and their descendants. (Sources: http://bermyonionpatch.blogspot.com,

http://venezuelaspeaks.com and, http://venezuelanalysis.com)

News You Use

Face the Displaced

With nearly five million Colombians forcibly displaced from their homes by a debilitating war, Colombia is now the second worst internal displacement crisis in the world. Between now and April, tens of thousands across the U.S. and Colombia will participate in this year's Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia to call for a much-needed shift in U.S. policies toward the war-torn country.

The U.S. has for too long been part of Colombia's problem, not the solution. Through Plan Colombia, the US has given over six billion taxpayer dollars to Colombia, most of it to arm and train the country's military, which is notorious for killing innocent civilians and then dressing them up to appear to be guerrillas.

US aid has funded aerial fumigations, which have displaced thousands of farmers by killing their crops (both illicit and licit), while utterly failing to curtail coca production.

The US-Colombia free trade agreement, still pending approval, would further exacerbate displacement by decimating Colombia's small-scale farmers with an influx of heavily-subsidized US grains.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation Colombia Program is calling on the Obama Administration to boldly change U.S. policy in Colombia by ending military aid and annulling the agreement that established a U.S. military presence on at least seven Colombian military bases, using U.S. influence to promote a negotiated end to the conflict, prioritizing social and humanitarian funding for internally displaced persons and refugees, and supporting victims' efforts to find truth and obtain justice and reparations, forging economic relationships that protect and create opportunities for small farmers, the rural poor, and endangered workers, rather than passing a free trade agreement capable of pushing Colombia's poor further into poverty, and ending fumigation and forced eradication programs that have pushed thousands of farmers from their lands.

Already in March, hundreds of universities, faith communities, and organizations have assembled thousands of printed faces of Colombia's displaced people to be later displayed. Each face will be framed by the message to President Obama. While the faces make awareness-raising appearances in numerous cities in April, congregations across the country will pray for peace in Colombia-focused worship services. After April, all the faces will be sent to Washington, D.C. for one final display to be presented in person to representatives of the Obama Administration.

If you are interested in any or all of the three (3) ways to get involved, hosting a "Face the Displaced" party in March, displaying the faces in a demonstration in April and/or dedicating a worship service to Colombia in April, please email Liza (liza@igc.org) or your regional organizer.

On the Fellowship of Reconciliation Colombia Program website at http://www.forcolombia.org, there are several files of photographs and other information about the program to get you started.

Disgruntled feels: Discouraged! From my bottom up perspective, the US economy is still tanking. All the media hype about the economic recovery to the contrary has not translated into more jobs and income for folks barely surviving on the bottom of the economic ladder. And, the situation is bound to get worse before it gets better. State and local governments are planning to pare their workforces to offset budget shortfalls due to declines in revenue collections. Some localities are planning on closing schools and laying off teachers, administrators, janitors and school bus drivers to balance their budgets. Even in California, where the unemployment rate is 12.5% and per capita incomes have declined since 2008, there is no good news on the economic front. In fact, it is so dismal that the good citizens of that great state may decide to legalize marijuana, a viable cash crop. Remember, as California goes so goes the rest of the country. Bottom line, the economic news is not good; even the most optimistic person can become discouraged by all the doom and gloom.

Disgruntled wants to know: During the heated debate over health care reform, shock jock Rush Limbaugh threatened to move to Costa Rica, if the measure passes. Well, the measure has been signed into law by President Obama. Question, when can we expect Rush to make good on his promise?

Disgruntled says: Against black militants of the 1960s, the use of incendiary language was cause for arrest and imprisonment on a charge of inciting to riot, whenever violence erupted. If you are black, threatening language can bring about a charge of terrorism, even for an eight year-old in a third grade Georgia public school classroom. Since the election of President Barack Obama and the rise of the angry white mob, which apparently does not like the idea of a black chief executive, threatening and incendiary language have become mere rights of free speech, even when members of the mob engage in violent acts, such as throwing bricks into office windows. No one has been arrested; no charges have been levied against the mob's leaders. The difference in treatment accorded whites and blacks is obvious and on display for the world to see. We may claim it is the land of freedom and equality, but everybody with yes can see the rank US hypocrisy.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.businessweek.com ...Brazil Raises Tariffs on U.S. Goods, to Break Patents...By Iuri Dantas and Mark Drajem...Brazil will raise tariffs on 102 U.S. exports, including wheat, cars, boats and chewing gum, and break patents worth $238 million in a bid to force the U.S. to end subsidies to cotton producers. Acting on a World Trade Organization ruling, Brazil will impose levies of 14 percent to 100 percent, according to a list published in the government's Official Gazette. The sanctions, which take effect in 30 days, represent $591 million in trade with wheat goods the largest target, Carlos Marcio Cosendey, head of Foreign Ministry's economic department told reporters. The government of President Luiz Inancio Lula da Silva plans to take additional steps and break U.S. patents as part of the $829 million retaliatory measures, Cosendey said. The ministry will publish a draft for public consultation of sanctions over intellectual property March 23, he said. "The major goal of the retaliation is that U.S. companies pressure the U.S. government to solve the problem of subsidies to cotton producers," Cosendey said. "We've always been interested in a negotiation with the U.S." to avoid the need for sanctions. The Geneva-based WTO in August ruled that Brazil may impose annual sanctions on U.S. imports because the cotton subsidies violate trade regulations.

Email www.ap.com ...In Colombia, car bombing death toll reaches 9 dead...The death toll from a car bombing has risen to nine in Colombia's Pacific port of Buenaventura. Local Red Cross director Carlos Ivan Marquez also said Thursday that 36 people were wounded by the blast near offices of the mayor and prosecutors. No one has claimed responsibility for the Wednesday bombing. As Colombia's only major Pacific port, Buenaventura is a key cocaine trafficking hub and is rife with rival criminal bands. Miguel Angel Libreros, the city's chief prosecutor, says the attack may have been a retaliatory strike against authorities by drug traffickers or could stem from a gold mining dispute. Colombia's military earlier pointed to leftist rebels.

Email www.federalradionews.com ...Colombian journalist slain in militia stronghold...By Vivian Sequera...The killing of a veteran radio reporter by a motorcycle gunman in a northwestern state capital reignited concerns Saturday about the safety of journalists in Colombia. Clodomira Castilla, a reporter and announcer at La Voz de Monteria radio, was gunned down on his front porch Friday night, said Jaime Cuervo, a judicial investigator in Cordoba state. Castilla, a 50-year-old father of four, had reported on far-right drug funded militias known as paramilitaries and their friendly ties of the area's business elite. Cordoba has long been a paramilitary stronghold. Police had no immediate suspects in the killing and offered a $26,000 reward for leads. Castilla's employer said he had received threats and was assigned bodyguards for two years until last year.